Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many computing racks, which may include server racks. Each computing rack, in turn, may include many computer systems, servers, associated computer equipment, etc.
Electronic components generate waste heat energy when in use. This heat energy should be removed to mitigate a potential for component overheating and subsequent malfunction. Computer systems typically include a number of such components, or waste heat sources, that include, but are not limited to, printed circuit boards, mass storage devices, power supplies, and processors. For example, one personal computer system may generate 100 watts to 150 watts of waste heat and some larger computers with multiple processors may generate 250 watts of waste heat. Some known computer systems include a plurality of such larger, multiple-processor computers that are configured into rack-mounted components, and then are subsequently positioned within a rack computing system. Some known rack computing systems include 40 such rack-mounted components and such rack computing systems will therefore generate as much as 10 kilowatts of waste heat. Moreover, some known data centers include a plurality of such rack computing systems.
Some known data centers include methods and apparatuses configured to facilitate waste heat removal from a plurality of racking systems. Some data centers rely on forced air systems and air conditioning to maintain the temperatures and other environmental conditions in the data center within acceptable limits. The initial and ongoing costs of installing and operating these systems may add substantial cost and complexity to data center operations.
Some data centers use outside air, also referred to hereinafter and interchangeably as “ambient air”, as an important source of cooling air used for waste heat removal. The outside air can be directed to remove heat from equipment in the data center. The outside air can be cooled via one or more various air cooling systems. The characteristics and quality of outside air may vary widely, however, even at a given location.
In some cases, outside air includes water vapor. This vapor, also referred to as “moisture”, can condense on various surfaces and equipment in a data center as outside air is directed into and through portions of the data center. Such condensation can damage various equipment in the data center. In addition, in some cases the moisture can condense out of the air and freeze, deposit out of the air, etc. to form ice on various surfaces and equipment. In addition to damaging various equipment, ice accumulation caused by such condensation or deposition can restrict the cross-sectional flow area of various portions of the data center, which can restrict the supply of cooling air to equipment in the data center. Such restriction can starve data center equipment of cooling air, which can lead to heat buildup and thermal damage to the equipment therein.
The various embodiments described herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. Specific embodiments are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the disclosure to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.